Society

It was February 18, 2012, when Mohamad Osama Al-Baroudi disappeared. Dragged out of his Damascus clinic by security agents, the thirty-seven-year-old gastroenterologist from Hama vanished into Syria’s dark security system. Just like so many other Syrians, he seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. His family knew neither his condition nor his whereabouts. Then, almost seventeen months after his arrest, they were informed of his death.
“I was with Al-Baroudi and two other doctor...

The problem of aid delivery in Syria has become so grave that the UN is pressing the Syrian government to allow more aid to pass through Turkey to reach what it estimates to be 3.5 million people who have been isolated and cut off from any form of humanitarian relief.
The crisis has intensified as the warring parties have reached a stalemate. In the north, the population of internally displaced persons residing in camps has increased by 20 percent to around 129,500 between January and Ma...